Alike
by Usagia94
Summary: Delmare Keaton moved entire countries for a paycheck that she couldnt refuse but what she finds there will change everything she thought she knew.
1. 1

An alarm shrilled Loudly from its place upon a beaten up bedside table for a few moments before a slender hand reached from beneath plump covers to turn it off. Silence reigned for a few moments before there was a feminine yawn and a girl, in her very younger 20's, sat up and stretched. Her sleep filled aqua eyes roved her small room unseeingly for a moment before they fell upon the small Calender hanging on her wall.

Jumping from her bed with a squeal she rushed to change into her new uniform, fresh out of the package it had arrived in a few days prior. It wasn't much, plain black trousers, a little baggy, a white button up blouse and a cardigan, once again black. Carefully, she pulled on a pair of black gloves and tamed her wild black curls into the semblance of a bun at the nape of her neck.

When she was ready, she ate a quick breakfast, brushed her teeth, and slipped on her comfortable shoes before running out of her door and to the bus stop.

The ride was uneventful and with a quick, quiet thank you to the driver, she strolled down the street, following the directions she had received on a letter that had arrived with her uniform. Soon she reached a gate that towered above her, no easy feat since she was at an even six foot in height, and pressed the intercom button to the side.

When the talk button flashed green she steeled the nerves running rampant through her.

"Hello, my name is Delmare Keaton, it's my first day here."

She stood there for a few moments, shifting nervously, before there was a loud buzz and the gate opened slightly, the magnetic lock disengaging. Breathing a small breath of relief she pushed open the gate and entered the slate grey building.

A stiff looking man in a crisp suit was waiting for her inside and spoke in a clipped manner,

"Miss Keaton, my name is Agent Manning, follow me."

Raising an eyebrow at his abrupt tone, Delmare followed him silently listening to him attentively.

"You signed the non-disclosure form but I will overview it again. Anything you see in this facility will stay within this facility. If you do tell _anyone_ then you will be imprisoned and the key thrown away."

They stopped in front of some ornate doors and before he could continue she asked,

"Sorry for interrupting, but why am I here? I received a job offer, who's pay check I couldn't refuse, but it has been extremely vague in the discription."

Agent Manning turned to face her and gave her a cursory overview,

"You are here Miss Keaton, because of your degrees in mechanics and aquatic engineering. There is some delicate equipment that needs fixing or updating whenever needed, and you are one of the best."

Pride blossomed in her chest as her face reddened a little. Agent Manning gave her a cursory glance before continuing where he left off.

"What you will see through these doors may shock you, please don't scream."

Delmare's nerves shot through her and her heart began to race as Agent Manning pushed open the doors. Inside was not what she expected. Her heart began to calm as she cast intrigued eyes around the lavishly decorated library. The only reason she could see that she was there was the enormous tank that took up the right side wall. Slowly she left the Agent by the door and moved over to it, taking in that it was _much_ larger inside. Her hands twitched gently before she asked,

"Is this why I am here?"

She gasped and spun as a new voice answered her,

"Not quite."

 **An.**

 **Please be kind, I haven't done any FanFiction writing in a _long_ time and normally they are Harry Potter ones. This came to me after watching shape of water and binge watching hellboy/2. After searching for some Abe/Oc and coming up rather short, I thought I would try my own hand at it!**


	2. 2

Standing close behind her was an older man, his hair was mostly white and had a pair of delicate glasses perched upon his nose. Laughing quietly at how jumpy she was, she extended her hand,

"Hello, I'm Delmare Keaton, it's a pleasure to meet you."

The man shook her hand firmly,

"The pleasure is all mine, my name is Trevor Broom, but most just call me Professor." Delmare smiled gently as their hands released, recognising the name as the man who had hired her.

"I will take my leave then Professor, Miss Keaton." With that Agent Manning left, shutting the doors behind him.

A strange silence settled as the Professor moved towards the tank and tapped the glass gently. Curiosity burned within Delmare and she couldn't stop the words from escaping.

"What's in the tank?" Covering her mouth in shock at her abrupt words, fearing she had angered her employer, but let out a sigh of relief when he just chuckled.

"A dear friend of mine, come over so you can meet him."

Her face pulled in confusion as she travelled the small distance, her eyes combing the darkness of the water. The movement of something large did not surprise her, a tank has to be proportionally larger than the creature inside it. The shadowy figure moved closer and her eyes widened as more was revealed. In front of her floated a man, his skin was a light blue with stripes of darker blue, he was bald and had large expressive black eyes with no whites and a small mouth. Her gaze traveled down his muscular body, noting the tight shorts to her relief, and the webbed hands and toes. She stared for a little longer before gasping,

"I am so, so sorry for staring! I didn't mean to be rude!" The Professor gave her a surprised look and went to speak, but was overrode by the man in the tank,

"It's alright, I would be more surprised if you didn't, my name is Abraham Sapien, please call me Abe."

His voice was deep and soothing, easing the mortification slightly.

"Abraham is the reason you are here Miss Keaton," The Professor said as he turned to face her, "He wears special equipment when he is out of his tank and we have noticed it has not been working as it should, though none of us can find what is wrong with it."

Delmare nodded thoughtfully and turned to a surprised Abe. "How isn't it working for you?" He seemed taken aback for a moment before replying,

"It varies considerably, some days there might not be enough oxygen in the water, others too much. I stopped using it when the salt levels in the water began to fluctuate wildly. I can survive in salt water and fresh water, even without water for quite a while, but when it changes suddenly from one to the other, it was quite painful." Nodding along to his explanation, Delmare gave a hum of thought before turning back to the Professor.

"Do you have the blueprints for the device that I could go over?" Moving swiftly, the Professor handed her some papers off of his desk.

"Your work room is upstairs and the first door on your left, there is a bed and on-suite in there also." Thanking him With a smile, she left to get to work.

The Professor waited a few moments before turning to Abe with a raised brow.

"You didn't shock her with her own history, nor by asking her to turn the pages of your books. What's the matter Abe?" The merman floated in the water, collecting his thoughts before replying distractedly,

"I couldn't get anything from her. Not one thought or emotion. How interesting." The two shared a look before the professor moved to sit.

"She didn't seemed alarmed by me either, I wonder what she will do when she meets HB?" The Professor chuckled at Abe's musings before picking up his book.

"Interesting indeed."


	3. 3

It was a few days later when Delmare sat pouring over the blueprints once again and compared it to the machinery next to her, it had been a surprise to find Abe's 'breather' on the desk in her room, but helpful.

"Half of this doesn't match the blueprints!" She moaned in aggravation, using a screwdriver to get to the insides. She noticed more and more discrepancies the more she looked.

"This is badly repaired, this isn't wired up properly, and this…what the heck is this?" Using tweezers Delmare carefully pulled a small chunk of something out of the tube that supplied water to the small tank that went round Abe's throat. Cautiously she brought the metal object to her face, under a magnifying glass, and muttered to herself as she examined it.

"It seems to be a miniature slow release capsule, pushing something into the water supply. Definitely not on the blueprints." She put the metal capsule on the table gently and moved to fill up a glass of water from the bathroom. When she returned, she put on some safety goggles and grabbed a plastic pipette. She carefully opened the capsule and poured a little of the water like liquid into the pipette, clamped the open end, and placed it carefully into the water. Slowly the strange liquid began to bubble inside the pipette and she quickly pulled it out and onto the table before it could explode.

Shocked, Delmare took a moment to collect her thoughts before anger rose in her. The liquid in the capsule was liquid carbon dioxide. It was a well known, though not agreed upon, way to euthanise a fish. Someone was trying to kill Abraham Sapien.

With her thoughts gathered, she rushed out of her room and down the stairs, startling the occupants. She ignored everyone else and ran to the Professor,

"Who has been 'fixing' Abe's breather until I could get here?" She rushed out. The old man blinked in shock repeatedly,

"Hey! Don't talk to my father like that!" Delmare spun around and took in the giant red man with filed down horns and a long red tail flicking behind him and stared up into his eyes as she spat,

"You better sit down and shut up, this is important!" In shock, the red man did just that so she turned back to the Professor. He looked contemplative and answered,

"Andrew penn. He has the highest engineering degree here before you arrived. What's the matter?"

Delmare sucked in a large breath and pushed her anger down, now that she was calmer she could see that Abe was out of his tank on the sofa, sat next to the red giant of a man.

"Can we speak in private?" She asked, glancing to Abe and back again. The professors face hardened and nodded, ushering her towards his office.

As the two left Hellboy turned to Abe, muttering,

"What was that about?"

Abe shrugged his shoulders,

"How should I know? She's unreadable to me."

 **AN**

 **HI, I researched some stuff and the experiment is true but not with liquid CO2, but with a flake of dry ice, had to improvise a bit haha. It is true with the CO2 used for euthanasia with fish, sometimes it doesn't work or the fish in question has a reaction and dies painfully, so yeah.**


	4. 4

The Professor gestured for Delmare to take a seat, which she did so with a shaky breath.

"Obviously you have found something to merit concern." He stated sombrely as he sat behind his desk. She nodded and clenched her jaw.

"I have cause to think, no, to _know_ Andrew Penn has attempted to kill Abe." The Professors face paled, "Luckily Andrew also didn't really know what he was doing and messed with the internal mechanics of the breathing apparatus, making Abe take it off before the capsule could do its job properly."

The Professor slumped in his chair and rubbed his brow as if he had a headache.

"What was in the capsule?" He breathed weakly as he moved forward to lean on his desk.

"CO2. It is a slow release capsule, so it would slowly poison him. I don't know if it would have any severe affect as it would to a normal fish but I would definitely still class this as an attempted murder."

Trevor raised from his chair and walked to the office door, calling out to the two men still outside. They entered warily, probably feeling the tension in the room.

"First things first, Delmare this is my son Hellboy, HB for short or you can just call him red. Secondly, Hellboy, could you go and get Andrew Penn for me please?"

Hellboy looked even more confused but nodded his head respectfully and left.

"Professor?" Abe asked inquiringly. The old man said nothing and just held out his hand. Delmare watched in amazement as Abe grasped his hand and gasped, pulling away and facing her.

"My sincerest thanks for saving my life Miss Delmare, it was very good of you."

Delmare blushed slightly and nodded,

"No problem Abe, I did what anyone else would have."

They were interrupted from any more talk as Hellboy entered the room with a nervous looking man, he was thin with a mop of black hair cut close to his head.

"What am I doing here?" He exclaimed "Especially warranting the freak to come and get me!" He threw a dirty look at the behemoth beside him.

Before anyone could move there was a loud **slap** and the men's mouths gaped open when they saw that Delmare had hit Andrew round the face.

"Don't ever call them that horrid word! How dare you?"

Hellboy let out a chuckle as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back,

"Got spunk kid."

Delmare smiled shyly and backed away from the now furious man.

"Agent Penn," The Professor began, "There has been a development with Abe's breathing apparatus, it was quite a simple problem."

Andrew seemed to pale slightly, ire forgotten, as he gulped

"Has there? I didn't see the problem when I was working on it." The professor smiled gently and replied quietly,

"No, of course you wouldnt, seeing as you were the one that made all the problems in the first place. Where did you get your certificates in engineering?"

Andrew began to sweat,

"I…I.…"

Abe put his bare hand out towards Andrew and tutted dryly

"He seems to have lied and doesn't have anything close to a degree in mechanics." Delmare stood to the side, watching with awe. Hellboy still seemed a little confused, not being psychic at all but backed his father and friend still.

Andrew knew where the conversation was going and in a mad dash for the door ran into Hellboy's outstretched red rock arm and was knocked out.

"Anyone wanna explain to the rest of the class what's going on?" The Professor held up one finger in the universal 'one moment' sign before he called somebody on the phone at his desk. About two minutes later four men came in the room and removed Andrew.

 _Five minutes later._

 **"He What!"** Abe held a hand daintily on hellboy's shoulder to stop him getting up.

"Everything is fine Red," Abe reassured, "He didn't have the knowledge to harm me. I knew something wasn't right." The Professor and Delmare sat opposite Abe and Hellboys sofa, Abe's pulled apart 'breather' on the table between them and the capsule next to that.

Delmare yawned subtly behind her hand, having been tinkering most of the day and then dealing with Andrew for the rest of it.

"I'm off up to bed now, goodnight." Hellboy and the Professor said goodnight but Abe followed her out the room.

Outside her door Abe cleared his throat

"I would like to thank you again, not just for the poison but for defending Hellboy." Delmare smiled softly, eyeing his nervous movements.

"No problem Abe. I abhor that word as I've been called it more times than I can count." His head twisted to the side in confusion as his eyes roamed her body, finding nothing out of the ordinary. She smiled sadly before leaning in close and giving him a hug. He froze for a moment, unsure, before his arms wrapped around her gently. Inhaling, He jolted in shock, breaking the hug abruptly.

"Goodnight Abe." He murmured back distractedly as his mind raced, _'how interesting'_ he thought, _'she smells like the ocean, never have I smelt that on a human before.'_ His eyes widened, head snapping to her closed door.

 _'She isn't human.'_


	5. 5

Gasping, Delmare sat bolt upright in her bed and rubbed her face harshly. Slowly she left her bed, grabbed her dressing gown and left her room to go down to the library.

She sat by Abe's tank, her left side pressed against the glass, lowering the temperature of her overheated body.

"Couldn't sleep?" She jumped at Abe's voice and lifted her head to see he was in the water next to her. She chuckled and shook her head.

"I wish I could get in the tank with you Abe, it looks so calming." Abe gave a gentle smile and prodded,

"Would you like to talk about it?" She mulled over the question in her mind uncertainly.

"I had a nightmare," She allowed, "of what happened the last time I told someone about me." Abe put his hand on the glass, Delmare copied him, placing her hand atop his.

"I, well I don't know where I came from." At Abe's confused look she kept talking, "I knew my mum, she was a solo sailer. She traveled the world by herself for years." Abe relaxed against the glass, "what happened?"

Taking a deep breath she asked "Don't feel any different of me?" Abe shook his head.

"Delmare means 'from the ocean', my mother told me that when she was sailing, she came across a strange man, injured quite badly and floating in the ocean." Abe's nonexistent eyebrows rose "She pulled him on board, his dark blue skin, webbed hands and feet and black eyes didn't scare her and when he was healed they had a night of passion," her face grew red

"When he left she found out she was pregnant with me." Abe swam back in shock.

Slowly Delmare pulled her glove off of her right hand and placed it back on the glass, allowing Abe to inspect it at his leisure. Her fingers and hand was a dark blue, webbing stretched between them, her nails black. The blue fading to white at her wrists. Abe was in shock, _'someone similar to me'_ he thought faintly.

"I don't see why that would be cause for nightmares." He stated faintly.

Grimacing in remembered pain Delmare pulled her sleeve over her hands and rubbed gently over the sides of her neck. There laid three horizontal silver scars on each side under the makeup, similar to the gills on Abe's neck. Running vertically through both was a thick line of scar tissue.

"I told somebody I thought I could trust about them. They told their parents, and they didn't like their child being friends with a _freak."_

It was quiet for a long moment and when she had the courage to look back at Abe, she nearly cried when she discovered he was gone. _'So stupid of you Delmare, even he thinks you're a freak'_ she was snapped out of her thoughts by a damp hand on hers. Eyes shooting up hopefully, she actually started to cry when she saw Abe crouched beside her.

"It's ok Del." He stated calmly, before pulling her into a hug.


End file.
